Viloria Dethrones WBO Champ Miranda In Hawaiian Punchfest

WBO flyweight ruler Julio Cesar Miranda went into the lion’s den of challenger Brian Viloria’s local Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu, Hawaii last night looking to make the fourth defense of his title.

Hometown hero Viloria started quick out of the blocks, taking the fight to the visiting champion, who was stunned to find himself off his feet in the very first round via a spearing body shot.

While Miranda was quickly back up, Viloria’s continued assault on the champion’s midsection compounded 31 year old Mexican’s problems in making weight after after an eleven year career spent largely at 112 pounds.

The champion managed to wrest control of the bout by the fourth and was hurting Viloria over the next two frames. But the Hawaiian dug deep and was landing huge shots in the sixth and seventh.

Viloria was cut above an eye in the eighth and that injury coupled with a loss of energy encouraged Miranda to come back and hammer the challenger with lashing combinations although the quicker Viloria was still landing meaty single shots in the ninth.

The champion was in the driver’s seat from that point on as Viloria looked to minimize damage to his wound and to ride out his points advantage.

The final frame featured good two way action as Miranda tried hard for a knockout that never came against the now running challenger.

When the scores were read, Viloria was awarded a unanimous decision on all three scorecards. The 30 year old former US Olympian, 29-3 (16), now adds the WBO flyweight crown to his trophy cabinet, which already consists of the IBF and WBC light flyweight belts.

Miranda loses for the first time since dropping an IBF flyweight chance to Moruti Mthalane in 2009, falling to 35-6-1 (28).

The undercard saw Filipino super featherweight Michael Farenas, 32-3-3 (26), overcome a bad cut in the first round to post an eight round majority decision over veteran Mexican featherweight Fernando Beltran Jr, 35-6-1 (19), in all-southpaw battle.